David Wooster, born in Stratford, Connecticut, on the 2d of March,
1710, graduated at Yale in 1738. At the breaking out of the war
between England and Spain in 1739, he entered the Provincial army with
the rank of lieutenant, but subsequently was given command of a vessel
built and equipped by Connecticut for the defence of her coasts. In
1745, he took part in the expedition against Louisburg as commander of
the war vessel “Connecticut,” which conveyed the troops to Cape Breton.
The next year he visited England and was given a captain’s commission
with half-pay for life. Returning to America, he served through the
French and Indian War; but when troubles began to arise between the
American colonies and the mother country, approving the demands of the
former, and believing his allegiance was due to them, he resigned his
commission in the British army in 1774, and was one of the originators
of the expedition by which Fort Ticonderoga was captured in May, 1775.
With the organization of the Continental army, Wooster was made
brigadier-general on the 22d of June, 1775, and ordered to join
Montgomery in the Canadian expedition. On the death of that officer,
the command for a time devolved upon Wooster, and he acquitted himself
to the satisfaction of Congress. Returning to Connecticut, he resigned
his commission in the Continental service, but was made major-general
of the militia of his native State. During the winter of 1776–77,
he was employed in raising recruits and in protecting the military
stores which had been collected at Danbury. On the 26th of April, 1777,
Governor Tryon, at the head of two thousand British regulars, attacked
the town, destroying the stores and retreating. Wooster and Arnold,
collecting about six hundred militia, went in hot pursuit; but the
undisciplined recruits gave way before the British artillery. Wooster,
endeavoring to rally his men, exclaimed, “Come on, my boys! never
mind such random shots!” when he was pierced through the body by a
musket-ball. Carried back to Danbury, he lived but a few days, dying on
the 2d of May, 1777. On the 17th of June, Congress passed appropriate
resolutions, and voted $500 for the erection of a monument. This duty
being neglected, the hero’s grave soon became unknown. In 1854, a
handsome monument of Portland granite was erected to his memory in
Danbury.